Rust repair and body shops

What is it that is making you not trust them ?

It's strange, I can't really point to anything specific. The owner said he was "a good communicator", but then, he never returns calls or e-mails, not even to confirm that he got them. When I go in and show him a list of things that I e-mailed him about, he says "yeah, you e-mailed that to me". Parts that he's supposed to order don't get ordered. Things that are supposed to get sent out don't get sent out. Schedules that HE lays out don't get met.

On the upside, I've made friends with the receptionist, and she seems to be the one who's actually running the shop. She was surprised by the logistical things that hadn't been taken care of yet, and she said she will make sure they get done. When I told her that the completion is now past-due, she said that she had already made the determination that my car should be a priority, and would see to it that it got done ASAP.

Also, every time I've gone to see it, there has been notable progress, it's not like it's sitting in a corner with a tarp over it.

Initially I was going to send it to a shop that dips, but I decided to go with this shop instead that sands. The rust situation isn't too bad, and I thought this would be better than something as "invasive" as dipping. I mainly just want to make sure that they are doing things right to prevent future rust. I'd be happier with a less-than-perfect paintjob on a car that doesn't rust, than a beautiful paintjob that develops bubbles in a few years.

Is this a restoration shop or a collision shop ? Theres a lot of body shops out there that do restoration work also. Collision repair is faster and more profitable so the resto work ends up sitting around till they have time to get to it.

This is most likely the problem.

I would agree that if you have suspisions, they are probably deserved. Unfortunately, once they start it's hard to get the car out of the shop.

My last (and I mean my last as in never again) restoration had a similar story line. I thought about pulling the car 3 or 4 times but I was a little lazy. It was easier to keep things moving with the guy I was working with. In the end I regretted leaving the car there. Shortcuts were taken that weren't immediately obvious. In short, I got hosed and a great car that had no rust, only moderate collision damage was ruined by my standards. It is now impossible to turn back the clock and do the job correctly.

If you have doubts, stop the work and think about it.

I own a Collision/Resto shop and I see one thing in your pics that would raise questions. Looks like they put Bondo or putty over paint or primer. I would have stripped it completely like the other side. Hope it was etching primer. My Shop would not take in a job in if we were not going to work on it on a daily basis, The space in my shop is prize to let a project just sit there.

Good call, I was concerned by that a little also. I know that there were initially two spots that needed work, and they took just those small areas down to bare metal first. Then, before they worked on the panel as a whole, I know they took the rest of the paint off. Here's a comparison of how it looked previously with how it looked last time I went in, better?

Yup! I always say communication between myself and the customer is very important. Goodluck, don't be afraid to ask any questions on what they are doing, its your car and your money! A Honest shop should have no problems explaining thier work.

1AAR, I totally agree. I run a business too, and if the you-know-what hits the fan, if you're communicating with your clients, at least they know you're there, going to bat for them. With this guy...I don't know. I don't think he realizes the damage he's doing to client relationships and future potential business, just by making himself so scarce. I'm glad that the receptionist is so stand-up and proactive about things...I think everything is going to be going much better now that I've got her in my corner.

The owner, the best description is it's like he's an autistic genius. He does phenomenal work, he just lives in a different universe from the rest of us...

Unbelievably, the guy who recommended this body shop to me -- he personally guaranteed the work after I told him about my concerns. He said, point blank, that if I wasn't happy with the job, he'd pay for it, the whole thing ha ha.

sounds like a clock rider
i know from irving
good luck

Price is agreed upon, so there's no clock riding going on.

From your initial questions it seems your concerns are with the shop owners poor communication skills.
Auto restorers have a tendency to be more artist and less technician than those who do collision repair or both. A lot of artist types are sorely lacking in people skills. Problem is it is still a business. If he doesnt want to take the time to talk with you perhaps he should be working for someone else and not running his own shop. I worked for someone else for years and could lose myself in my work, now as a shop owner I spend alot of my time on the phone or dealing with the walk-ins that wander in and think you have nothing better to do than spend an hour talking cars. If you are uncomfortable enough to have doubts about his work he has been neglecting you plain and simple. Get after him about it.

Well, my car is a pretty easy project. I'm not a body guy, so it's possible I'm over-simplifying, but the car really doesn't have that much rust. Lower quarters, a few little perforations here and there, that's it. Also, and this is key, I am OFFERING to buy replacement panels for everything, rather than have them fabricate anything from scratch. They have ample opportunity to reduce their time while increasing my outlay...they're just very...slow.

Amazingly, and I'm afraid this is a really bad sign, the receptionist who stepped up to help me last week? I called Tuesday to ask her if they had ordered the various panels, and I found out she was "no longer employed there". The person I talked to I KNOW has been there for a long time, so I guess that's better than if it were a new stranger, but still, kind of weird.

We shall see how this goes over the next week or two, and beyond that, I may have to pull out and find someone else. Darn, we were SO close...

Whats the hourly rate at the shop???

Don't exactly know the hourly rate, I suppose that depends on how long it takes them to do the job, as it's on a fixed price. I'd guess it's around $45/hour.

I was told it would take them 4-5 weeks to complete, I thought this was pretty quick, but they said they don't like to stall. Well, apparently they've begun stalling, becuase at 5 weeks it doesn't even look half done to me. I sure hope it gets done someday...

all ways take what they tell you and multiply it by 2 to be safe. Ive been told my car will be in the shop in 2 weeks since feb, and I work at the shop.

Those little perforations of rust are like the tip of the Iceberg, You only see whats at the surface, but behind the sheetmetal is way more. Be careful and make sure all rust is cut away!

Ha ha ha ha, I have returned. The car is finally almost done. It sat since my last post here, until about a month ago, with almost no progress. I didn't want to raise hell (out of fear of jeopardizing the car) but I finally did by letting the guy know that I was coming by to pick it up. He said "it's not ready yet..." to which I replied "I know". When I and he discovered that his contract didn't have anything in it regarding incremental progress, and that I would owe him NOTHING if the job wasn't done, he really got things in gear.

Anyway, it gave me time to work on things like a really nice suspension rebuild, saving money for other parts, etc. Oh, and I also built a nice little 4-car garage in the meantime. When I remember how to post pictures here, I'll put some up of the progres...

I hate to say it guy but if your car that is in the first picture is after they have done some work on it I would be suspicious as well. I specialize in first class body reconstruction on muscle cars, no collision work period! First of all I don't use any bondo fillers, especially over bare steel. Just one of my pet peeves. Second, is that mud just over the rust holes? If is is you have wasted your cash, or I should say they have. That will be a guaranteed redo. Rust repair is the hardest thing to gauge for price simply because it is always far worse than you suspect. Here is a few pics of the 70 Hemi Cuda body that I restored for a customer and you can see exactly what I am talking about. The before pics are someones attempt at bondo repair and after I cut the lower off this is what I found. Solid rust and perforations. So I fabbed up a new lower quarter panel and was able to save the rest of the original panel, and you would never know that it was replaced!

Another:

Much better:

What rust?

Wow, over 1 year, and the car still isn't even finished? How much is this costing you? How many hours did they log? You have way more patience than me. I had my car at a shop, and it was the typical story, "over promise, and under deliver" I pulled the car after 6 weeks of them not doing any work on it. The were charging $86 per hour, and logged 120 hours, doing 2 rear frame rails, floor, and torsion bar mount. The orginally told me it would only take 70 hours! After that screw up, I yanked the car as fast as I could. There work left a little to be desired too!

Congrats on getting the body shop to step up their progress. Quick Silver gave you some great advice & having learned the hardway MANY times, I empathize w/ you. I'd suggest you take a super experienced, qualified & skilled body/paint guy along w/ you when you pick up the Cuda. BEFORE you pay the shop, have your friend thoroughly inspect it inside & out. Go over it w/ a magnet,etc & if it isn't right, don't accept the car. Read your contract & see what your rights are as to quality, acceptance, etc. Don't budge an inch w/the shop if the work isn't what was agreed upon or acceptable. Also, if you have a freind who'se an attorney, take him along, too. I'm going thru that right now w/ my 68 Cuda & had to re-do my 69 R/T SE Charger because I trusted hacks who didn't know a thing about mopars, let alone quality body work. Also, the longer the car is at the shop, the more chance of lost parts & mistakes. I paid $12K for a rotiserrie job on my 70 Cuda & after 2 yrs, the guy "lost" my bench seats & most of the trim. Probably sold it off. Shoddy work, too. Best of luck to you.

Thank you for all the advice. I understand what you're saying, Quicksilver. It's a much longer story than I can put up here, but I will say that I've been watching the progress and that first picture isn't indicative. I don't know what they did there in that picture, but after that was taken, they stripped that whole section down. They cut off all the rust in the quarters and fabbed up new ones, but the body lines were wrong, so I brought in new ones and they welded them in. Same with every other area of rust, which thankfully wasn't too extensive, just the quarters, driver's floor pan, and a few small spots on the rocker and firewall.

The nice thing is this is fixed price...I don't know why the guy would do it, maybe he was hurting for work at the time, but we agreed to a price and that's what it's getting done for. (There's a contract AND I have a good lawyer already) Fixed price probably explains why it's taken so long, but at this point, I don't care, I'm just looking forward to the car back. Here's a couple more pics.

More

(and I saw what was going on behind this too...I provided the trunk extensions in addition to the quarters, and any other bad areas were cut out and replaced with new metal)

more 2

more 3

more 4

We do fixed bid all of the time with a guaranteed maximum, as I'm sure you've all seen and commented on here.

We rely on the honor of our customers and they rely on ours. If little unexpected things pop up, we cover them at no charge. If something big that nobody expected comes up, then we work out a fair resolution.

We've never had a problem.

PS. If that's almost done, what did you contract for them to do? How much are they charging you?

Car is a fixin' to be GREEENNN

Ha ha, no, there's not too much bondo on this one. There was initially, but ever since I went out there with my pit bull, things have been looking up ha ha.